CMO Erin Nelson on Her Decision To Leave Dell

Today top marketing and advertising executives will start gathering in Orlando, Fla., for the Association of National Advertisers’ annual conference. Attendees will be eager to hear how their peers are preparing their companies for growth.

Erin Mulligan Nelson, the CMO of Dell, is preparing for a job change. She is slated to address ANA attendees on Thursday. Her keynote, where she is to talk about the brand’s evolution with colleague Karen Quintos, will be her last star turn as CMO of Dell, a company she is leaving after 12 years this month.

On Nov. 1, Nelson will begin a new job as CMO of Austin-based Bazaarvoice, a privately held outfit that develops social commerce programs for big marketers. I spoke with Nelson in her first interview about her decision to leave Dell.

Wells: You’re leaving the CMO-ship of Dell for the same position at a smaller, lesser-known company, five-year-old Bazaarvoice. Why?

Nelson: I’ve been at Dell for 12 years and the last two as CMO have been extraordinary. As I thought about the next 12 years, I thought it was time to think about something new and different. Social commerce, social media is a really exciting area with lots of growth. I’m really excited about learning something new. I’ve never been at a small company that wants to be a bigger company. I think it’s going to be an extraordinary learning experience….It’s also incredibly scary. This is a whole new space. I’m going to learn a lot and be stretched a lot.

Can you elaborate a bit more on Bazaarvoice and its potential?

Bazaarvoice has experienced tremendous growth in an exploding space. Social (media and commerce) for us now is like the Internet was 10 years ago. Bazaarvoice brings the power of ratings, reviews and brand stories to companies. It works with 950 brands, including Procter & Gamble, Best Buy and Sephora. Dell has been a customer for four-and-a-half years. They manage our ratings and review platform. We have been committed to this and found it very effective. We have products on site that customers provide feedback on. It has changed the way we do product development. It has gotten us closer to what customers really need. There are a lot of people happy with what they do. They are so close to the commerce transaction that it’s easy to demonstrate ROI.

The plan is for Bazaarvoice to go public, right?

It’s something (Bazaarvoice Founder and CEO) Brett Hurt and the executive team would like to see happen in the next couple of years.

How did this opportunity for you come about?

The world is really small. My [sons] are 7 and 10. [My husband and I] wanted to figure out where were we were going to be for the next 12 years. I’m CMO of Dell. It’s the job I aspired to have. I don’t know that I would find another 12 years of as much growth and change at Dell as I would at a small and growing company.

Brett [the CEO of Bazaarvoice] and I ended up having dinner together in the middle of August and just had a chat about what was important to him and what was important to me. It felt like this serendipitous match. I spent a couple of days with his executive team we quickly realized it was a good match for both of us.

There is a lot of churn in the CMO job at Dell. Your predecessor, Mark Jarvis, was CMO for about the same length of time as you. What’s the deal?

I don’t think they’re related at all...The Jarvis era was a different time with different personalities and different business issues.

Dell has had a tough slog the past year. Is that part of the reason behind your move to another company?

No, it doesn't have anything to do with being in a tough environment. I feel really confident in the direction Dell is going. In marketing, we've spent the last several quarters focused on two core priorities: driving Dell brand health and building the capabilities of our 4,000 marketers globally. Earlier this year, we launched our purpose, and we are just weeks away from unveiling our external brand platform. We've instituted some outstanding world-class programs around talent and development. I'm very proud of what we've done so far. While there's still a lot of hard work ahead, both in marketing and with the overall strategic transformation of the company, I really believe Dell is on the right track.

So this was more of a personal decision?

I've still got a lot that I want to learn and to do. I just turned 41 and I've been thinking a lot about the next 12 years of my career. I knew at some point there needed to be a next chapter beyond Dell for me, and assumed that would be in the next year or two. This particular opportunity was one that I was really excited about—even if it came a little earlier than I had planned.